Five Times Sam Winchester Lied
by TroublingAStar
Summary: ...when he probably shouldn't have. [gen]


Five Times Sam Winchester Lied

**Unum—of course I'm (not)**

They say that home is where the heart is, but Sammy knows better than to believe that. Or, rather, he jealously admits that perhaps home is where the heart is for _normal_ people. But for one Samuel—Sammy—Winchester, home tends to consist of a place where he stays long enough to fall into some sort of pattern and become accustomed to the way things are. Home is where he has friends and teammates and some form of a house.

He always throws that in his father's face, too. _Why are you taking us away from our _home_? Can't we at least stay until the end of the school year? End of the soccer season? At least until I can get a date with Amanda Walker, please Dad!_

But he knows the answer, even before his father sighs wearily and rubs a hand across his face and gazes at him with sorrowful eyes. _Got a job to do, Sammy. I can't leave those people to die. Besides, you can make new friends in Portland. And I'm sure the girls are prettier there than this Amanda._

So Sammy lets Dean help him pack up his books and weapons and things, chattering eagerly about how he's always wanted to try taking on a wendigo anyway, and _Come on Sammy, isn't is way more awesome than any of those pansy things the kids at school do?_

His reply is generic, dull, and it is more than enough to set off the warning bells in his big brother's head. Dean gently punches his shoulder, encouragingly, before asking if he's sure he's alright.

Sammy turns his head, letting his overlong hair that is sure to be their father's next project fall into his eyes as he replies, _Of course, Dean._

**Duo—nothing to fear**

He's thirteen and he's never been more excited because he finally is old enough to go on a hunt. It's just going to be him and Dean, since their father is going to be going on a hunt of his own. The only reason John had ever agreed to this was Dean's doing, mostly, bending words and truths and lies so deftly that his silver tongue leaves Sammy speechless. He's never seen Dean do something like that before, though he will in the future, because Dean's primary focus is Sammy and, well, if Sammy really wants to go on a hunt and if there are two hunts to be had in Orlando, then why shouldn't he be allowed to come, right?

John gives in eventually, though he insists on doubling their training the week beforehand and lecturing them for hours every night. For once, though, Sammy doesn't mind at all if he misses soccer because this is for real _hunting_ without even a _chaperone_ and it is probably the coolest thing he's ever been allowed to do. In fact, he's positively bouncing from excitement as he tucks knives into his _brand-new_ boots and fitting a superfluous gun into his waistband and he barely has enough discipline to concentrate on his father's strict parting words, simply nodding his head like a stupid bobblehead before letting Dean drag him off, lest John change his mind and declare the whole thing too dangerous.

They walk into the darkened theme park—after he shows off just a bit by picking the lock in record time—and he cautiously snakes a hand into his jacket to clasp his solid iron knife, watching Dean as he cagily inspects the area with their hand-me-down EMF meter.

As the beeping accelerates, it occurs to Sammy that he's actually going to face off with a real spirit for the first time, with little more than iron, rock salt, and Dean to back him up. What if he ends up being the weakest link? What if he throws the salt wrong or loses his head entirely and actually tries to _shoot_ the stupid spirit, or gets Dean hurt? What if he can't get anything right and John and Dean never let him hunt again?

Dean somehow notices the change in Sammy's trembling, even through the darkness and while watching out for a spirit. _You okay? Need a sec?_

He starts, finally noticing his brother's inspection, and turns away guiltily. _God, don't treat me like I'm three or something. I'm not scared._

**Tres—is this goodbye?**

He's angrier than he's ever been in all of the deformed, unnatural, eighteen years of his existence. He got in Stanford—_Stanford_, one of the best schools in the country—with a full-ride, and he expected his father either be explosively angry or to be surprisingly supportive, to be—not this. He hadn't expected John to congratulate him and offer to frame the letter. He hadn't expected him to get them reservations at a restaurant, something special, to tell them to clean up and be ready for a fancy, hot meal because he's so _proud_ of his youngest son for not letting his brains go to waste. And he most certainly hadn't expected John to casually inquire as to how and when he was going to inform Stanford that he won't be coming.

Not going? Not _going?_ Why hadn't John mentioned that when he cautiously informed him that he was applying to university? Why hadn't Dean done or said _something_ when he spent whole nights spinning tales of going to some top rate school and keeping in touch and being sure to scope out hot girls for him? What was the point of his flawless grades then, of even applying? What was the point of getting in if he wasn't _going_?

He had scheduled his whole life around them, had _always_—despite his complaints—come along when they had to move. He had never run away, never caused any trouble beyond quarreling with his father, and _this_ was how his family treated him when he asked for some reign over his own life?

It isn't like he's giving up hunting, not for good. Surely there are hunts in Palo Alto, right? After all, it is well and good for the Winchester clan to drive across the country and stop wherever disturbances presented themselves, but there had to be hunts that were never reported. After all, every time John told them about a hunt, he was always struck by the years and _years _of grisly murders that had to pass before hunters realized what was going on. He somehow had always felt guilty for those deaths—if only he'd read the article the _first_ time it had been mentioned in the newspaper, if only he'd been more careful reading the city databases he was always sure to hack into. If they—or at least if he—stayed at Stanford, he could make the Bay Area the least haunted place in the nation, he's sure of it.

But now he's made John angry, and the two of them argue and argue and argue before he utters those words that he can never take back: _I bet Mom would be thrilled if she could know! She'd _never _tell me not to go!_

John freezes immediately, and he can read his father's body language as easily as he can any book—and he knows he's made a massive mistake. For then it's John's turn to utter words he will rue for the rest of his life—though neither of them know it at the time.

_If you're going to go, then get out of my house. Once you set foot out that door, don't bother coming back. You won't be a Winchester anymore._

He recoils, the pain inflicted by those words deeper than anything he's every felt before. And that's when he knows that he has to leave, because if he doesn't, their family—or what's left of it—will go through a hell of his making. Such words can't be accompanied by anything but action, and if he doesn't leave now, he's afraid he'll drive John to throw him out, tearing at old wounds every Winchester has.

And he can't bring calamity down on his family again.

So he stomps upstairs—stomping makes for a convincing and theatrical effect—and packs his things in silence, ignoring the thudding of his own heart and the sound of Dean's voice as he brokenheartedly pleads with their father to take it back, to tell Sammy that he didn't mean it.

But John did, of course, which is why he zips his duffel bag, packing everything—even his weapons—except for his pictures of his family. And he persuasively storms downstairs, pretending his heart isn't shattering with every step as he ignores the baleful glare Dean shoots their father, as he mutters something that sounds like _take care of yourself, Sammy_, and as John pointedly picks up a book on the table, shutting him out entirely.

He tries to scowl at Dean, hoping his façade will slip, as he says, _I've always hated it when you call me that—it's Sam_ and steps out into the rain, slamming the door behind him for good effect.

He waits until he's soaked through with rain and sweat and has already arrived at the bus stop before dropping his bag and bawling his eyes out in front of the bewildered innocents waiting for the seven o'clock bus.

**Quattor—blonde aftermath**

She's beautiful in that blonde, out-of-this-world kind of way, and Sam can't help but be drawn to her. She sits next to him in Art History, coyly toying with her hair as she raises a hand and not only destroys his arguments on modernism but also successfully arouses his interest in one fell stroke. He's always liked girls that could hold their own in a classroom, dorky though it may be, and is pleasantly irritated when he realizes that she consistently outscores him.

After all, no one has ever outshone Sam Winchester before.

It's not long before he finds himself holding heated debates with her in class, coming at her arguments again and again before she finally snaps and asks him if he's some kind of a lawyer wannabe or something. When he asks what it is to her, she replies that she refuses to associate with anyone of the kind, since they've obviously lost their souls long ago.

Just for that, he decides to go for a pre-law track. It's freshman year, after all, and he can still do change his major whenever he wants to. Besides, he can do whatever he wants—or nothing at all—with a rhetoric major. In any case, it gives him pleasure to see just how deft he can be with words, making even the maddeningly brilliant Jessica Moore stutter with disbelief as she tosses her hair and says that having a silver tongue means nothing in the art world. The word makes him frown for a moment, remembering someone else whom he had thought to be clever with words when it came to it, before blocking the memory and mockingly asking the blonde what delusion she is nursing to think that _she_ could ever make it into the art world?

He's reasonably pleased to discover that she throws a good punch.

One thing leads to another, and both of their groups of friends end up locking them in an empty classroom one Saturday afternoon to just kill each other and be done with it. Sam checks out the simple lock out of habit before remembering that he's locked in the room with the single most maddening person in world, and he does _not _want her knowing how easily he can pick the lock. It's not like she gives him a second to do so in any case. She makes a smart remark, causing him to retort, and they start arguing right off the bat before Sam gets so distracted by her red lipgloss and fed up with her words that he just kisses her. She breaks it off immediately, eyes widened as she opens to her mouth to tell him off; she shuts her mouth, gives him a calculating look, and throws her arms around his neck as she kisses the life out of him.

_So Sam,_ she laughs when their befuddled friends finally let them out. _When do I get to meet the family?_

His eyes darken as he remembers the last time he talked them before shrugging. _I don't really have one. _

**Quinque—don't worry**

Dean looks concerned, his light green eyes troubled as he glances over at Sam. _You okay?_

Sam swallows, trying to erase the images his subconscious stubbornly keeps conjuring up—Jess, stuck to the ceiling; Jess burning; Jess dead, her mouth open in a scream he was neither around to hear nor prevent. Had she died like that, or was she already dead when she was pinned up there? Did she hate him, curse him for leaving her without even telling her where he was going? Did she suffer before she died?

Sam knows that it's all his fault. After all, what kind of grisly coincidence is it that his mother and girlfriend died in the same manner? And he'd _seen_ her death a hundred thousand times before he lived it—how could he not have warned her? How could he not have been more careful, more protective of her? Wouldn't it have been better if he'd told her about his family and the things that quite literally haunted it?

He had been so afraid, so careful to keep Jess in the dark about what the Winchesters did. Had it really been just been to keep her safe? Or was he more afraid of her rejection, her denial? He was so selfish! If he'd really cared about her well-being, he would have told her everything and then, if Jessica had decided he was too much for her, he should have been willing to let her go!

He shakes his head a little suddenly, still letting his eyes adjust to the bright sunshine streaming in through the Impala's windows.

There's no point in still thinking about this. She's already _gone._

_Yeah,_ he says finally, _I'm fine._

_

* * *

_Nothing belongs to me. Hope you enjoyed! 


End file.
